TGS 2010 – Killzone 3 in 3D with Move Hands-on

With Killzone 3 I popped both my 3D and PlayStation Move cherry. As with most firsts, there was a lot of fumbling and nervous laughter and ultimately, it was a mixed bag. I have never been a big fan of motion controls as I feel they are rarely used to great effect, and Killzone 3 did little to convince me otherwise. It felt tacked-on to what otherwise seemed like a solid continuation of what was achieved by the first two KZ games. With my crosshairs flying all over the screen I had difficulty in maintaining a steady aim, and turning corners was far more difficult and time consuming than it should have been.

However, the 3D was rather impressive, and at the same time relatively unobtrusive. In fact, after the first two minutes, if it weren’t for the fact that the glasses were digging into the back of my ears, I could have almost forgotten all about it. This impressive level of integration is exactly what was lacking with the motion controls. On occasion, flecks of dust or empty shells came flying towards me, with bullets constantly hurtling across screen. These small touches did wonders for the atmosphere, making the demo that much more memorable.

As for the game itself it replicates the dull, industrial palettes of Killzone 2 and the combat will be instantly familiar to anyone who played the previous instalments. Trudging your way through a number of interconnected, rusting structures you move from one small skirmish to the next, culminating in a showdown with a couple of jet-pack Helghast. The handgun and machine gun, the only two weapons on offer, were more than up to the task, and gave a real sense of weight behind each burst of fire.

Killzone 3 certainly looks the part, but then so did KZ 2. The 3D elements were well utilized and served to heighten the experience, but for this title at least, I can’t say the same about Move.

Matt has been a gamer ever since Father Christmas left him a Master System II in the early 90's. Santa was clearly a Sega fan, as a Mega Drive and Saturn would follow in later years. Matt has long since broken free from the shackles of console monotheism and enjoys playing a wide range of games, almost as much as he enjoys meticulously ordering them on his living room shelves.

6 comments

Seriously though, I’ve looked at videos of KZ3 being played with Move on IGN and sadly it highlights all the problems I have with motion control wands for FPSs, and hence it demonstrates all the same issues most gamers have with FPSs on the Wii (such as turning by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen). Yes it works, but most of the time it’s clunky and is nowhere near the mouse/keyboard replacement that some predicted it to be. I also noticed more lag than I expected, therefore until someone comes up with a motion control method that works better than a controller, I’ll be playing console games like KZ3 with a controller.

Jesus, what is up with developers? Is it really that hard to make this work? Stop trying to use the crosshairs with motion control games like they’re goddamned light guns games. Lock the camera onto the crosshair and allow a small deadzone to allow people with shaky hands to not be affected, stop fucking around.

Also, they’re doing the same thing with MAG(which I will actually pick up if they don’t botch the move controls) and it’s just. not. working. Sure, the free roaming crosshair has its advantages but moving the crosshair all the way to the left side to make your character move is BS. I really hope they don’t mess this up. I should probably give up on PC like precision on consoles for FPS, the makers always give us some crap about an unfair advantage(FYI a mouse and keyboard is cheaper than one game controller). But really, if Move doesn’t work I’m just giving up on the genre.

Hello Matt, It seems to me you’re not favorite om ‘move’ controls in general. I really enjoyed ‘Goldeneye’ with the ‘zapper’. But i’m really looking forward and curious on how well the ‘Sharp Shooter’ will work in KZ3. Sofar, everybody who writes about move is more in favour of standard controls, such as ‘controles’ or ‘keyboards’. Is it really that bad?